More contaminated soil removed adjacent to public safety building

Phyllis Booth photo Highway department employees were hard at work on Sept. 26 digging out the “good” soil surrounding one of the monitoring wells adjacent to the public safety building.

At the annual town meeting in May, voter approved spending $45,000 for remedial activity of contaminated soil at the public safety complex and town hall area.

“This has been an ongoing problem for many years,” said Town Administrator John Lebeaux at the Sept. 26 selectmen’s meeting. Much of it has been corrected over a period of time. In 2009, an injection process of materials was successful in several test wells, but not in one of them, Lebeaux added. Long history

In 1954, the highway department moved from the building behind town hall to a garage on East Princeton Road. The underground fuel tanks were left in place at the site. From 1960 to 1964, a portion of the highway building was reconstructed as a fire station. The light department was housed in the building now known as the town hall annex. Two, 1,000-gallon gasoline tanks were installed for use by the town.

In June 1987, the southwest portion of the old highway building was torn down and four underground fuel tanks were removed, along with approximately 30 cubic yards of petroleum-contaminated soil. In Feb. 1988, construction/renovation for a public safety building was completed. In Nov. 1994, a pair of 1,000-gallon underground fuel tanks were removed from in front of the former light department. In April 1996, oil seepage was noticed at the base of the embankment down gradient of the public safety building toward Hubbardston Road, and soil samples showed petroleum contamination. In June 1997, 126 tons of contaminated soil were removed from the area of the front corner of the public safety building and monitoring wells were installed. In January 1999, monitoring wells were installed around the former PMLD area and gasoline contamination was found. Sixty-three tons of contaminated soil were removed from that area in spring 2000. In 2001, the town’s consulting engineer Tighe & Bond applied oxygenrelease compounds into the test wells to accelerate the natural attenuation process occurring at the site in the hope of finding a permanent solution to the problem. Since 1999, voters have approved spending almost $300,000 for environmental cleanup in town.

“It was the recommendation of the consultant to excavate and the state Department of Environmental Protection agreed,” Lebeaux said. “We waited for summer when there would be dry soil. We need a special environmental contractor to handle ‘dirty dirt’ but the town can excavate clean material saving more than $5,000. Once the highway crew reached a certain level, even I could see where the color of the soil was different, and it had a slight smell to it.”

The consultant has a “sniffing” device and it will determine the perimeter area, he said.

“This is our third go-around with this,” said selectman Stanley Moss.

“We will still have a period of monitoring as well as monitoring on private property nearby,” said Lebeaux.

Lebeaux said about 50 yards of contaminated soil had been removed from the site. “We need to put a test well back in and then start monitoring that to see what it shows us,” said Lebeaux. “There is some indication there may be more contamination than we were originally led to believe,” he added.

In other business, Lebeaux reported a work crew of inmates from the Worcester County House of Corrections straightened gravestones at Meetinghouse Cemetery. Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis has stepped up the program of loaning inmates to non-profit organizations and municipalities to work on projects. Two members of the historic commission, a gravestone consultant and a correction officer oversaw the work.

“The crew also spent three days at the Princeton Center, removing some carpeting and painting some rooms. Next spring, we’d like to have them paint the public safety building,” said Lebeaux. “We provide all the equipment, supplies and lunch for the crew.” Fuel spill

Fire chief Raymond LaPorte reported on a hydraulic fluid spill of more than 10 gallons that occurred on Hubbardston Road on Sept. 23. A trash truck blew a hydraulic hose, spraying fluid on Hubbardston Road for more than a mile, said LaPorte. That required a report to DEP, and trucks came out with machines, sweepers, speedy dry and booms to keep the fluid out of catch basins, wetland areas and river entries.

The cost of the cleanup will be billed to the trash company’s insurance carrier, he said. The next morning, the site was stabilized and there were no environmental impacts.

“The highway came and sanded the road, which was unbelievably slippery with hydraulic fluid on top of water. We shut the traffic down form noon or so until 7 p.m.,” LaPorte said.

LaPorte said after two weeks into the pilot program of having paramedics and EMTs paid a stipend of $50 per 12-hour shift of official on-call standby, the results are “very refreshing.” Out of 42 shifts, 36 were filled, he said.

“The results were dramatic, the best we’ve ever done,” he said. He said he’d report back to selectmen in another two weeks.